The Tanis digs, marked by excavation platforms and
equipment, are swarming with Nazis and hundreds of Arab workers.
Belloq pursues a frustrating search for the Well of the Souls on
a ridge-top. Disguised as Arabs, Sallah and Indy stealthily move
toward the map room a short distance away, where the sun will be
perfectly positioned at about nine in the morning. In the center
of a mound of dirt is a circular hole/entrance - an open skylight
high above the map room.

Indy descends into the map room on a long length of
rope. Their plan is that Sallah will immediately pull him up when
he tugs on one end of the rope. At the far end of the beautifully
decorated room - with walls covered by carvings and frescoes - is
an elaborate relief map. It shows a miniature stone model or replica
of the ancient city of Tanis. A beam of sunlight from the skylight
floods the room with a stream of light. As Indy surveys the map room
below, Sallah is mistaken for a servant by the Germans and the rope
is confiscated. He is detained next to a jeep, a short distance from
the mound.

In the map room with little time left to spare before
nine A.M., Indy brushes off dirt from the mosaic base line for the
staff. He deciphers and calculates from the stone inscription hieroglyphics
on the floor where the staff must be positioned. He attaches the
headpiece at the top of the Staff of Ra and places the staff's base
in the correct depression on the baseline. In a transcendent, exciting
moment, the sunlight moves along the wall and floor and then catches
the top of the headpiece. As the ray of light shines through, it
is magnified and sends a tiny beam of light toward one building in
the miniature city. The focused light causes an intense, searing
glow to flood the scene. It marks the proper location of the Well
of the Souls - a different spot from where the Nazis are digging.
After breaking the wooden staff in two, Indy calls for Sallah to
throw down the rope from the skylight. Sallah, who has eluded the
Nazis, rescues Indy with a makeshift string of clothing - the first
section of which is a bright red Nazi flag.

When the two begin walking out of the camp, they must
avoid Nazi confrontations. While Sallah retrieves water for demanding
Germans eating lunch at a table, Indy ducks into one of the tents'
openings and finds Marion gagged and bound to a tent pole as a hostage.
He is relieved to realize that "they must have switched baskets." As
Indy pulls out his knife to cut her ties, he suddenly stops when
he realizes that if she is freed, the Nazis will find her gone and
his presence at Tanis will be detected. They would comb the place
for both of them and interrupt his obsessive search for the Ark.
He replaces the gag back on her mouth, as she protests, kicks, and
screams at him. He kisses her on her forehead and promises: "I'll
be back to get ya," and then hurries out of the tent. Using
a surveyor's instrument on a high sand ridge, Indy uses his readings
to view the virgin spot in the sand where he must begin digging.

High-ranking Nazis are becoming exasperated and impatient
with Belloq. They suggest that "the girl" (to whom he takes
a protective fancy), who was in possession of the original medallion
for years, may be able to help them. Toht also reappears - his crisp "Heil
Hitler" salute reveals that his palm is scarred and burned with
the exact imprint of the medallion.

With help from a small band of Sallah's diggers, Indy
begins the work of excavating the new location nearby. After the
bright red sun sets, ominous storm clouds appear and lightning flashes.
The storm intensifies when the diggers hit stone - part of the heavy
entry door to an underground chamber, the Well of Souls. Crowbarring
the edge of the slab open, they unearth the historic tomb. Holding
torches, Jones and Sallah peer into the asp-ridden cavern where they
see the face of a dragon statue. Then they stare back into the chamber:

Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indy: Gimme your torch. (Indy throws a torch down into the thirty
foot deep chamber where it hits the floor. Hissing noises arise.)
Snakes. Why'd it hafta be snakes?
Sallah: Asps. Very dangerous. You go first.

More torches are thrown in the chamber to create a
clear, snake-free area on the floor - the snakes hate fire.

The scene of the unearthing of the chamber and discovery
of the ark is cross-cut with the scene of Belloq's attempted seduction
of Marion to find out about the location of the Ark. After being
untied, Marion runs for the tent entrance to escape, but is told
that she would be foolish - the desert is three weeks distance in
every direction. From a tray of food, Marion begins to eat and then
she is entertained by Belloq, who offers her a new white dress and
shoes to wear. He slyly watches her disrobe through a small mirror
reflection.

As he attempts to get information from her regarding
the location of the ark, she also attempts to lure him into a drinking
contest while covering a knife that lies on the table. They both
become very drunk. (Belloq has a high tolerance for the alcohol,
claiming he grew up on the stuff - his family label.) They laugh
uproariously when she pulls a knife on her captor. When she attempts
to back out of the tent, she is halted by the sudden appearance of
Toht, who threatens her: "We meet again, Fraulein. You Americans,
you're all the same with overdressing for the wrong occasions." The
sadistic German takes out an evil-looking chain device that looks
like a weapon - it is actually a coat hanger. He sits down across
from Belloq and Marion and asks: "Now, what shall we talk about?"

Indy carefully lowers himself into the chamber, but
falls to the floor where he lands directly face-to-face with a flaring
cobra in an excruciatingly horrific moment. [Visible is a piece of
plexiglass that separates Harrison Ford from the lethal snake.] Indy
sprays kerosene from canisters onto the snakes, and then ignites
many of the snakes with his torch. Sallah and Indy approach a stone
altar/platform at the far end of the underground chamber. Pushing
together with all their strength, they remove the top of the large
protective stone chest that encloses the Lost Ark. Fitting wooden
poles through the rings on the side of the Ark to avoid touching
it, they lift the Ark clear of its stone chest. It is awesomely beautiful
- a gold-overlaid rectangular box, with two sculptured gold angels
mounted to face each other on top.

At sunrise, the Ark is placed in a wooden crate, and
then hauled up to the surface with ropes. (Meanwhile on a nearby
ridge, Belloq notices the digging and discovers their alternate site.)
The torches have begun to burn out and the snakes move menacingly
closer. Sallah climbs out of the chamber on a rope, but the exit
rope for Indy drops loosely at his feet. Looking up, Indy sees Belloq
(with his Nazi men) staring and waving to him from the opening above:

Belloq: Why, Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in
such a nasty place?
Jones: Why don't you come on down here, I'll show ya.
Belloq: Thank you, my friend, but I think we are all very comfortable
up here...So once again Jones, what was briefly yours is now mine.
What a fitting end to your life's pursuits? You're about to become
a permanent addition to this archaeological find. Who knows? In a
thousand years, even you may be worth something.

Refusing to pull Jones from the tomb to safety, Belloq
instead has Jones entombed alive. Before the lid is lowered on the
tomb, however, Toht pushes Marion into the hole to be sealed inside
the Well of Souls with him. (Belloq is distressed and yells "No!" when
Marion joins Jones in the tomb, and bids her a sad farewell.) Her
fall is partially broken when she catches hold of the dragon statue
midway and she drops into Indy's arms. Her weight causes him to fall
to the ground and almost into the snakes. After Belloq bids them
'adieu,' the evil Toht giggles as he walks away from the tomb. Marion's
scream of "Nooooo!" is cut off sharply as the tomb is sealed
up, and both Belloq and Sallah cringe in horror and shut their eyes.

When the heavy stone door seals the chamber, the torches
inside the tomb begin to extinguish themselves due to lack of oxygen.
Indy hands a torch to Marion, instructing: "Wave it at anything
that slithers." Indy also questions her about the dress she
is wearing and wonders aloud how hard she was really trying to escape.

Examining the walls and seeing snakes slithering out
through holes, Indy figures that the secret chamber is probably connected
to other chambers already excavated by the Nazis. He has a brilliant
idea - he climbs up one of the pillar columns/statues and braces
himself between the tall pillar and the top of the chamber and then
pushes against it with all his might. After rocking it, the pillar
breaks loose and falls like a tree as Indy rides on top of it. It
smashes through the chamber wall, just as the last torch burns itself
out.

More horrors are revealed in the pharaoh's tomb on
the other side of the broken wall. It opens into catacombs full of
cascading, moldering mummies, sarcophagi and skulls (one has a snake
slithering out of its mouth). A nervous wreck, Marion thinks Indy
hasn't survived. But then, she is grabbed by Indy as he shows her
their exit - a crack in the corner of the chamber through which sunlight
beams. Once they miraculously make their way into the daylight from
the abandoned excavation, as luck would have it, their escape occurs
above an improvised, crude desert airstrip serving the digs. The
two are within sight of the Flying Wing airplane with twirling propellers
that will soon carry the Ark to Hitler. First crouching under its
wing near the plane, Indy quickly subdues a monkey wrench-wielding
German mechanic. Then he faces a second, burly, bald and shirtless
opponent.

In an exciting sequence, the two fight and punch at
each other as the plane's pilot tries to get a clear shot at Indy
from the cockpit. Marion bashes the pilot (Frank Marshall, the producer
of the film in a bit part) over the head, and knocks him into the
throttle. His weight revs up the plane, causing it to rotate in a
circle around one set of blocked plane tires. The plane's cockpit
cover shuts above her, but she is able to take over the plane's machine
gun. On the tarmac, the two opponents continue to fight within inches
of the plane's lethal propeller blades. Marion's gun fire punctuates
refueling tanks. Spilled fuel floods the entire area and quickly
catches fire. Soon, the burning fuel will ignite the fueling truck
and the airplane.

The big German doesn't see the spinning, whirring blades
roar toward him from behind. The propellers hack him to death - a
red spray of blood covers everything (the cockpit window and the
Nazi flag) to register his offscreen demise. Indy frees Marion from
the cockpit and runs from the flaming scene to safety. When the entire
plane explodes in a huge fireball, Belloq senses that "Jones!" was
responsible for the massive destruction. One of the Germans orders
the Ark loaded aboard a truck to be driven to Cairo and then flown
from there to Berlin. Sallah tells them about the new course for
the Ark:

Sallah: Indy, you have no time. If you still want
the Ark, it is being loaded onto a truck for Cairo.
Indy: Truck? What truck?

From a nearby hillside, Sallah, Indy and Marion watch
the crated Ark as it is placed inside the back of a canvas-topped
truck. Nazi guards protect the truck in a caravan, with Belloq in
a staff car in front of the convoy. Indy thinks hard about what to
do next in this unpredictable situation:

Indy: Get back to Cairo. Get us some transport to
England. Boat, plane, anything. Meet me at Omar's. Be ready for
me. I'm going after that truck.
Sallah: How?
Indy: I don't know. I'm making this up as I go.

From among one of the tents, Indy suddenly bursts into
view atop a magnificent white Arabian stallion (as a classic western-style
hero), and gallops off across the desert in pursuit of the truck.

Jones' impromptu chase is one of the most exciting
chase sequences ever filmed, similar to Westerns with runaway stagecoaches.
He cuts cross-country to catch up with the convoy that appears in
view far below him. He follows along on a parallel ridge, and then
descends to the road to ride alongside one of the trucks. He leaps
from his horse onto the rear of the canvas-topped truck, tosses the
guard from the passenger seat, and begins grappling with the driver.
After negotiating some difficult steering, terrain, and obstacles
in the path, Indy tosses the driver out and takes control of the
wheel.

During various stages of the chase, Indy forces several
escort vehicles off the road. After some unsuccessful, but hair-raising
attempts of Nazi guards in the back of his truck to oust Indy from
the wheel, he is weakened when one guard shoots him in the left arm.
The last remaining guard reaches the truck's cab from above. Indy
is tossed through the windshield and ends up hanging from a hood
ornament in the front of the fast-moving truck. When the ornament
bends and cracks off, he grabs onto the grill. The grill bars snap
one by one and Indy clings to the fender of the front tire.

To avoid being rammed in the back of the car ahead,
Indy lowers himself under the engine where he clings tenuously beneath
the vehicle. He makes his way to the truck's rear wheel axle - he
even gets dragged behind the truck while attached by his bullwhip.
Eventually, he pulls himself forward and lifts himself up onto the
rear of the truck, crawls back in, works his way back to the cab,
and jumps into the driver's cab. Angered, he throws the driver out
through the already-broken windshield. With the situation reversed,
the Nazi cannot duplicate Indy's acrobatics and is crushed to death.

Just outside of Cairo, Indy forces the staff car off
the road and sends it down an embankment. Indy's interference causes
Belloq to curse his own driver: "Idiot. Idiot." Then, Indy
speeds off toward Cairo, enters its narrow streets, and drives into
a gaping garage opening in the center of Omar's Square where Omar,
Sallah and his men are waiting to hide it. Indy conceals the truck
in Omar's garage, covered by tenting. The truck and garage are further
hidden by a hastily-assembled mini-bazaar of Omar's and Sallah's
friends. When the Nazi staff car pulls up, they desperately look
for the truck but cannot locate it - the Ark has been successfully
recaptured. Sallah informs Indy of the next step:

Sallah: Everything at last has been arranged.
Indy: The Ark...
Sallah: ...is on board. Nothing is lacking now that you are here,
or what is left of you.

A trustworthy, black ship captain named Mr. Katanga
(George Harris) has been commissioned by Sallah at the Cairo waterfront
docks to take the wounded Jones and Marion (and the Ark in the cargo
hold) in an old tramp steamer named the Bantu Wind to England.
When Marion says goodbye to Sallah, she gives him a kiss each for
Fayah, his children, then for himself (on the lips). A delighted
Sallah walks away singing "A British Tar Is a Soaring Soul,
As Free as a Mountain Bird..." from Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS
Pinafore.

On board, Marion appears in a white, silky nightgown
lent to her by Katanga:
"I've got a feeling I'm not the first woman to travel with these
pirates."
While they both look at themselves at opposite sides of a mirror, Marion
flips it up and slams the mirror into Indy's face. A cutaway to the
exterior of the steamer accentuates the echoing volume of Indy's scream.
Marion and Indy have a short while to rekindle their romance in the
film's only 'love' scene, but Indy is suffering in pain:

Marion: You're not the man I knew ten years ago.
Indy: It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.

Indy tells her that the only place it doesn't hurt
on his body is his left elbow. She kisses it for him and he prompts
her to continue kissing him - on the forehead next, then on his right
eye and his lips. But he soon falls asleep as Marion ponders: "We
never seem to get a break, do we?"

In the hold, the ship's rats are nervous and agitated
by the crate holding the Ark - it hums loudly, and the Nazi swastika
symbol on the crate's surface is scorched. The couple's bliss is
short-lived. By the next morning - Indy thinks something is wrong
when the ship turns quiet and its engines have stopped. He loads
his gun and goes on deck to check out what is wrong.

A German submarine [the same model used in the German
U-boat film Das Boot (1981)] has overtaken the steamer and
is sending over a boarding party. The Nazis quickly take over the
ship, herd the pirates on deck, repossess the Ark, and seize Marion
from the cabin.

Jones cannot be found as he manages to hide in a funnel
while the steamer is searched - Katanga tells the Germans an alibi: "Jones
is dead." Desiring Marion once again, Belloq angrily demands
to take her: "The girl goes with me. It will be part of my compensation.
I'm sure your Fuhrer will approve."

As the German submarine sails away, Jones is viewed
clinging to the top of the vessel. The submarine is sailed to a mysterious
island in the middle of the Aegean Sea, somewhere southeast of Greece
(the journey is superimposed on a map), where a Nazi base has been
built in its hollow interior. Jones disguises himself as a Nazi soldier
after being forced to knock out a second soldier to get a properly-fitting
uniform. Before sending the Ark to Hitler, Belloq explains to the
uncomfortable German commandant that it must first be opened in a
preliminary ceremony on a secluded part of the island:

Would you be more comfortable opening the Ark in
Berlin - for your Fuhrer - finding out only then if the sacred
pieces of the Covenant are inside? Knowing only then, whether you
have accomplished your mission and obtained the one, true Ark?

Jones follows alongside Belloq's men, as the Ark is
marched into a rocky cavern on the island. Indy ducks out of sight
when no one is looking, climbs the cavern wall, and halts the procession
from the cliff ridge with a bazooka on his shoulder. His weapon is
aimed directly at the Ark as he shouts:

Threatening to destroy the Ark unless Marion is released,
Belloq refuses to be bluffed by Indy and appeals to the archaeologist
in Indy:

Blow it back to God. All your life has been spent
in pursuit of archaeological relics. Inside the Ark are treasures
beyond your wildest aspirations. You want to see it opened as well
as I. Indiana. We are simply passing through history. This, this is history.
Do as you will.

Rather than risk Marion's life once more, Indy lowers
his bazooka and surrenders to them.

Now nighttime, Indy and Marion are tied back-to-back
to a stake, and watching from a few hundred feet away as the Ark
is ceremonially brought into a small grotto or crevice of rocks.
Belloq, dressed in Hebrew robes, delivers a short Hebrew incantation
over the Ark before it is ritualistically opened - he is greedy in
the belief that the Ark will give him and the Nazis ultimate power.
[Belloq's acquisition of 'Jewish' characteristics, and his frequent
opposing nature to the will of the Nazis may be met with the punishment
of death.] The momentous event is being documented by a film crew,
and dozens of Nazi soldiers anxiously anticipate the removal of the
Ark's lid.

The film's finale contains the most-remembered, intense
scene of all when God's fiery vengeance is visited upon the Nazis.
[The scene is reminiscent of the opening of the Great Whatsit box
in the climax of Kiss Me, Deadly (1955).]
When the gold lid is removed by two Nazi soldiers, Belloq reaches
in to discover only fine grains of sand within. (Have the stone tablets
of the ten commandments disintegrated?) But the Ark unleashes electrical
energy and charges, zapping all electrical lights, apparatus and
machines in the arena. Things turn dark, and then a loud humming
noise emanates from within the Ark. Inside the box itself, there
is a wondrous, brilliant light, and a white smoke undulates out of
it and blankets the ground. Indy warns Marion to look away (similar
to the Biblical story of Lot warning his wife not to watch the destruction
of Sodom, or Adam and Eve's knowledge of the forbidden fruit and
subsequent loss of innocence in the Garden of Eden):

Belloq has an obsessed, transcendent look on his face
- he believes that the blinding light in the Ark is beautiful. Ghostly
spirits hypnotically zoom around everyone - but apparently, God's
wrath has been summoned, as the forms change from wondrous to deadly
visions. Belloq is besieged by the ghostly images and screams in
horror - the interlopers are punished by a lethal dose of death for
breaking the sacred taboo. The villain is consumed by flames, and
piercing firebolts and shafts of fire zap the rest of the Nazis through
the heart. One firebolt actually travels through one of the movie
cameras, destroying the visual evidence of the event! Toht's head,
along with the heads of several other commanding Nazis, melts into
dripping ooze by the extreme heat, while Belloq's head explodes.

The climactic firestorm creates a rushing vacuum of
wind and a rising plume of fire above the island. Suddenly, the blinding
fire in the heavenly sky reverses itself, and the fire is sucked
and swallowed up by the Ark. When the forces are returned inside
the Ark, the lid slams down tightly and neatly shuts and seals itself,
and covers up the divine powers. Only Indy and Marion survive the
holocaust because of their humility and reverence for the awesome
forces.

At the film's end in the final scene back in Washington
D.C., Indy is congratulated by two Army Intelligence Officers: "You've
done your country a great service."
However, Indy and Brody find the "situation totally unacceptable." Although
told that the Ark is "someplace very safe," they are concerned
about its storage and that the government doesn't understand that the
Ark is "a source of unspeakable power." They are left with
the vague promise that some of the government's unidentified
"top men" are researching it: "We have top men
working on it right now."

Emerging from the building, Indy tells Marion his frustration:

Fools, bureaucratic fools...They don't know what
they've got there.

Marion responds with the film's final line: "Well,
I know what I've got here. Come on. I'll buy you a drink. You know,
a drink?" Indy has successfully fought and obtained the
Ark, only to lose it in the end to the government. His instincts
prove correct about the bureaucracy. The Ark of the Covenant is
crated in a wooden box and its lid is solidly nailed shut. Its
stenciled label contains a long inventory number for identification:

TOP SECRET, ARMY INTEL 9906753 DO NOT OPEN!

A warehouseman pushes the crated Ark down a long aisle
formed by huge stacks of similar crates in an enormous government
warehouse (a lengthy matte shot), where it will again be hidden away
- presumably by bureaucratic inefficiency. The crate is summarily
filed away in a scene deliberately reminiscent of one of the final
scenes in Citizen Kane (1941). One
might wonder, what are in the other crates -- other governmental
bureaucracy secrets that are being deliberately withheld, hidden,
possibly because of fear of misuse?

[In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull (2008), the warehouse - revealed to be in Nevada - was
revisited. The Ark itself was accidentally uncovered and visible
during a scuffle with KGB agents, but went unnoticed by the combatants.]